WTA Stuttgart & Istanbul: Kostyuk reaches main draw. Kasatkina bows out

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* Stuttgart (Indoor Clay) : The Porsche Tennis Grand Prix in Stuttgart is one of the strongest tournaments outside Grand Slams and two players from the Top 20 had to play against each other in the opening round. Magdalena Rybarikova has toppled Daria Kasatkina 6-2 6-2 in an hour and 15 minutes to make a winning start, beating the young Russian with a dominant performance on both serve and return. The Slovakian lost just 14 points in eight service games and she lost serve once, forcing Kasatkina to match those numbers if she wanted to stay on the positive side of the scoreboard.

The Russian was nowhere near that and she dropped more than 50% of the points in her games to get broken five times from 10 break chances she gave to Rybarikova. Daria never found the rhythm from the baseline and she lost her serve three times in a row in the opening set to find herself 6-2 down.

Carried by this momentum, Magdalena sailed through her service games in set number two and she broke Kasatkina in games one and five to book the place in the second round without spending too much time on the court. Monday's results:

* Istanbul (Outdoor Clay) : 

The 2nd seed Svetlana Kuznetsova had made a good start in Istanbul, beating Qiang Wang 6-3 6-3 in an hour and 40 minutes to earn the place in the second round. Both players struggled to find the breathing space on the second serve and there were 26 break points in total, 16 of those for the Russian who converted six to seal the deal in straight sets. The Chinese also had her chances but she could score only three breaks from 10 opportunities, not enough to keep her in contention for longer.

Svetlana raced into a 4-0 lead and that was enough to give her the set, as they broke each other in the last four games. Wang came back from a 0-3 down in set number two but Kuznetsova converted her fourth break point in game eight to increase her lead to 5-3, crossing the finish line after saving two break points in game nine. 

Monday's results:

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